I'm bringing back Saturday Night Special one more time. Here's tonight's open thread: I'll be out and about in the comments. J-Lo's on SNL, or something! But first, I need to give some Google Alerts their due diligence.

As you might've heard, because I won't shut the fuck up about it, because I'm a narcissist, or something, I'm leaving for the Village Voice and will be working the news beat on their Runnin' Scared blog [PLUG] sometime on Monday. I say "sometime" because if they expect a post from me at 8:30 AM after, um, tomorrow, haha, sure. More about that later.

But—and you'll hear me say this over and over again—this job has been a blast, and I owe it to quite a few people to say thank you for their help in getting me here and assisting my survival once it happened.

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Also, if you don't care about a bunch of people who you may or may not know who I'm about to thank, you can skip to where it says SO. How's that for servicey?

It'd be nice to start off with the guys who got me here in the first place: former Gawker Mascot Andrew Krucoff, Nic Musolino, Eli Valley, Curt, and everyone at Young Manhattanite. They've encouraged my deviant behavior and you can generally blame them (and especially the first two) for everything you despise and/or enjoy about my writing. Truth be told, they're both very nice guys. Directly related to this family are Michael Orell, Ryan Brown (of FAME GAME DOT COM - HOW MANY FAME GAME POINTS IS THAT WORTH?), Katie Baker-Bakes, Maura Johnston, Jeff Rosenthal, Peter Feld, among others. They've all been ridiculously supportive and incredible and this all really starts with them. Also, they've copy-edited me endlessly, sent me post ideas, and listened to me whine, bitch, and moan—endlessly—about how much I suck and/or gloat about how totally awesome I've rocked this motherfucker. Often. But truly, anything of quality I managed was probably some byproduct of their invaluable assistance.

Elizabeth Spiers, The Fairy Godmother (AKA Don Spiers, The New York Media Blogfather) who was the founding editor of this site, is also directly responsible for me being here, because she (and Krucoff and Nic) all told Gabriel I was worth a shot, which he took on me. But for the record: every time I was scared shitless or didn't know what to do or needed advice, Spiers was there, and she was right, every time. True story. Also, she has a website where if you have a laptop or a big enough moniter you can pretend Spiers (or Life-Sized Spiers!) is walking around your living room. Not that I've ever tried this. But it probably works.

I was lucky enough to get on a masthead with an awesome history of bloggers, editors, theives, crooks, extortionists, thugs, brutes, etc. Remember when Denton gave the site to Jared Paul Stern? Exactly. Anyway, while I did not extort Ron Burkle recently, I did rip many pages/posts/ideas straight out of their playbook, particularly the reigns of Coen/Oxfeld, Spiegelman, Spiers, Balk, Choire (x2), Leon and Jon, Lockhart Steele, etc. So, thanks for the good material. I made some money off of it. I spent it all. On drugs. Mostly drugs. And coffee. Some of those people have given me good advice and thank you, a million times over. You make Nick less scary. Also somewhere in this group fit in A.J. Daulerio, Bucky Turco, um, fuck, uhhh....Neel Shah, I guess? I'm not sure what I'm thanking Neel for but it might come in handy one night. John Carney, for all the booze. OH. Also: Leah Taylor gave me my first byline in New York, Natasha Dantzig gave me my second. Natasha's got a baby and is no longer in New york, but Leah's still at Flavorpill. One day she'll have a baby and it's name will not be Mark. Or Sasha. If I didn't mention you, expect a sandwich or something. More likely "or something," which means me forgetting about not thanking you already. Sorry.

When I wasn't writing the site, I got better writers to write it for me. And they mostly did it as a favor to me. I owe lots of people lots of favors.

Phyllis Nefler is the best thing on this site every weekend, hands down, and the shape of the weekends and the way this thing read completely changed with her writing and joy and general awesomeness. If I did one thing correct in my entire tenure, it was putting her column in proximity of me. Also: Maura Johnston, besides being a pop culture genius, is just an awesome person. Hey Buzz Media, you're fuckin' stupid for not keeping Maura. Sorry, it's true. Kelsey Keith, your three columns were suicide missions from hell, as writing about art often is, especially around here. You survived. Nice. Thank you for being brave, and quality. Also, Hunter Walker - Gawker's J-School Embed - is my Media Spirit Animal, and helped me out whenever any real reporting was required. Hunter is a batshit insane newshound with a bloodscent for scoops, a Yankees fan, and a former Gawker Weekend editor. Please cheer him on/get stabby with him appropriately.

Finally, Mo Pitz, my partner-in-crime and official Team Party Crash photog, I've had three of the best nights of my life with you, and I've got the beautiful memories to prove it. Actually, I don't, because we ended most of those nights blackout blotto pukeystyle, and it's kind of amazing we managed to get those galleries up the next day, let alone in a coherent manner. True story: I called Mo from my bathroom floor the morning after the VICE party and she was already up, still drunk, uploading photos. Essentially: doing her job. Since Mo never invoiced, FULL DISCLOSURE, she never got paid, so Mo, consider this a public invoice. We promised you money and I'm sure you can hit Remy for it. I'm serious. $150. Stick it to those bitches.

Um, who else? The good people at Variety Coffee Shop in Brooklyn didn't kick me out when I spent hours at a time screaming into my cell phone or computer about Lady Gaga's penis. They are important.

Finally, commenters, commenters, commenters. Oh. You fuckers.

When I first started this job, I hated commenters. I thought they were basically unnecessary and a total buzzkill and just a peanut gallery who are typically angry and often unfunny. The end of truth, at least in my experience, was anything but the case. But when I started, you hazed me viciously, told me to figure out how to get Ian back, and basically told me to quit. Also, that I sucked a [insert various barnyard animal]'s big ass [insert various sexual appendage or orifice]. I tried to listen! Some of you never stopped being assholes and some of you, whose respect I consider pretty goddamn hard-earned, stuck around. Thanks for that. A special shoutout to PoodleHeart, Baroness, SnugBug, LysergicAsset, TakeOutEurotrash, Kimsama, CrabbyGolightly, Mattchew03 (The O.G.), TheUptightMidwesterner, miss_msry, Dominant Glee Club, SaraRueful, unclevanya, momof3wildkids, Airvault, DahlELama, and a bunch of others. If you think I'm linking to your profiles, you're fuckin' crazy. People can just Google you. Also, I'm sure there are a bunch of you I forgot, please don't get offended if I did, I just went through my messages and copied names. A special shoutout to Annitra Morrison, who was my de facto copy-editor. Yes, some readers are so nice, they send me copy-edits. Over email. Instead of crucifying me in the comments, like the rest of you feral fuckers did. This is either the result of a serious compulsion or just plain niceness, and I think it's a bit of both. Anyway, you all made the job awesome, even when you were taking me to town. Also, you were, at times, hysterical. PLEASE TREAT THE NEXT WEEKEND PERSON/PEOPLE NICELY. Haze them a little bit, sure—heh—but this job isn't easy. I'm not working in a steel mill, but it's not a day on the sundeck, either. Kind of the opposite, actually. Unless you can get a good WiFi connection on a sundeck. In which case, call me.

SO, that's my hugely self-indulgent whatever spiel, and I'll say some nice words about the people I work with tomorrow, because that's the important one I don't want to fuck up! And honestly if I type anymore in this white box I'm gonna freak the fuck out. I need a beer. On a cosmic level. But a real one, too.

I'll be in the comments. Thanks to Matt and Joe for pitching in today. Thank you, again, for all the good times. It's been wonderful. The real chaos is coming tomorrow, when Young Manhattanite joins me on the site straight from YMHQ in New York City's Lower East Side, where we'll all be ideally blackout by dinner, and Phyllis Nefler doing Altarcations at 2:30 PM. See you then.